Just a Scratch Won't Stop This Record Playing
by AnonymousDeafMute
Summary: You never understood what people meant when they talked about colours, your world was always a mix of greys. Then you met John Crocker and you saw Blue. And again with Rose Lalonde. And again with Jade English...


Just a scratch won't stop this record playing

The first time you meet John Crocker is at a charity ball hanging off some actresses arm. He's older than you had expected- old enough to be our father- with laugh lines and wrinkles covering his face, his hair a salt and pepper mix of black and grey

You introduce yourself as Dave Strider, movie Director, eyes hidden behind new, authentic shades. In turn he introduces himself as John Crocker, Heir of Crocker Corp, and reaches out a hand for you to shake.

(Blue, Blue and Black and Wind and Shade. Hammers and Dorky glasses and dumb anime shirts. Terrible movies and Friend Leader. A rocket, a gate, a world that never happened. A birthday, a game never played and Best Friend)

The after images fade in a blink. You smile at the man in the white suit and a moustache that doesn't suit him. You glance at the blue, blue eyes behind square lenses before turning away to mingle with other guests.

You make "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff the sequequeal" 3 weeks later. It's about a boy and his friends dicking around in the timeline. It is undeniably shitty and, when you look through the Final Edits later, it feels private and personal in a way none of your creations have before. It grosses the box office twice. The pirating on your site goes through the roof.

* * *

T1ck

* * *

When you meet Rose Lalonde it's at a movie screening- for the first in a long series of films adapting her book, "Complacency of the Learned" to the silver screen.

She wears black like it's going out of fashion with pink accents so familiar you can hear it. Her smile is sultry and sarcastic all at once in the way only Lalondes can do. Blonde hair falls in delicate waves around her face, held away from her eyes with an almost childish black Alice-band.

She kisses your cheek in greeting

(Purple. Orange, Lavender and Black. Light and Rain and deadly needle wands. Sarcasm and Alice bands. Tentacle therapy and a timeline left to die. Falling to black and rising from the ashes and Sister.)

You ask her to sign your copy of the book and she asks for your signature for one of the first edition copies of one of your unbelievably shitty movies. There's a feeling of one-up-man-ship in that smirk she sends your way.

Later you find her phone number penned delicately in the inside cover. You spend all week mixing tracks with too much violin for your usual works.

(You dream of lost seers and forgotten transgressions and when you try and yell sorry there's no one there to hear you)

* * *

T0ck

* * *

The next, and last, time you meet John Crocker he is handing you a CC that contains all the secrets and atrocities of the Crocker corp. He is also dying. Soaked through to the bone with cold and too old for the years he is supposed to be. When he turns to leave your shoulders brush and you almost fall to the ground in shock.

(Meteors falling through the atmosphere. Swallowing houses and leaving children. Ancestors and descendants and a game you never got to play. All the blue floating away to be replaced with a shade too light for the one you recognised so long ago.)

Oh, you think. You watch Con-air over and over again for no reason and you feel tears fall down your cheeks that you can't explain away.

You send a copy of the CD to Rose. She'll know what to do.

* * *

Br8k

* * *

You meet Jade English on a tropical island in the middle of nowhere. She's old and wizened, her long hair white as snow. There's an old, well treated, gun to your head. On her back a baby clings – a boy- who looks so much like John for a moment you think he's some demented reincarnation of the man you only met twice and never managed to forget. (but the colours wrong)

The codes Rose forced you to memorise stutter out of your throat along with your name and when the hell did you get so old?

The gun lowers, and then falls from ancient finger to the ground.

Arms envelop you completely and she sobs incoherently into your shoulder.

(Green, Green and Black and Grey. Frost and Frogs and Rifles and Hair that reached a slim waist. Plants and Disappearing pumpkins and smiley faces dotted all over a computer screen. Long talks about science and space and time and how they intertwined. Dog ears and green energy so green it stopped existing and everywhere green. A dog never made and Friend)

She pulls away, eyes almost dry and calls you young man like she's always been older and coolkid when you throw a smirk her way.

And suddenly you almost understand everything.

* * *

H34ds

* * *

Your movies production increases and as soon as physically possible you spam the market and Earth with shitty tangible JPEG artifacts.

You watch the conclusion to "the Complacency of the learned" and find the hidden instructions just for you on the last knight standing in the 413 second of the film.

You don't cry when your main actors are assassinated on the last day of shooting.

Angry tears shake your entire frame when you hear "English is down, repeat, English is Down" and all the green fades from the earth and when it comes back the shade is sombre, mourning for its lost queen.

When the Batterwitch reveals herself your lips draw into a thin line and you think "John" so fiercely the entire world stays blue for hours.

Rose sends you more messages. You follow all of them to the letter.

You never leave your apartment, even when all of Texas is predicted to be ocean in the next 50 years you refuse to depart from the building you have called home since you were 16 (2).

You record sick beats, you write endless documents about irony, you go and find a placronym and etch the unmarred metal with "Dirk Strider" as the edges of your vision flare orange.

You find lil' Cal for no other reason than that you can and hook up a tape recorder and point it at your face.

You try to explain. You try to apologise but in the end you just… just talk.

You talk about friends you never had, about titles you never earned, planets you never visited, and a game you never played.

You explain about the batterwitch and English and Strider and Crocker and Harley and Egbert and Lalonde. You try to explain all the atrocities done for and against those names but fall short as everything burns Blue, Purple, Green, Red and Sky, Moss, Pink and Orange.

In the end you just cry. Throwing your shades away as the camera lens goes blurred. Saying how proud- how FUCKING PROUD you are of a kid who doesn't even exist yet.

And then you have to say goodbye.

(As you leave almost all the Red goes with you, superseded by orange.)

* * *

HoNk

* * *

Rose is a figure all in black and shadows but when she smiles the universe flares purple around her.

She reaches for you and breathes a mirror into your soul.

(Red. Always Red. Heat and Clockwork and Broken swords and eyes perpetually hidden behind dark shades. A copy of a copy of a copy and Birdwings and all of time to do whatever you pleased as long as it only took a day. A scratch and a 13 year old boy with the powers of a god resting at his hands.)

"Ready to Die?" the Seer of Light inquires.

The Knight of Time Smirks. "We're making this happen." He states and takes her hand.

To his left the Heir of Breath readies his hammer. To her right the Witch of Space cocks her gun.

Your name is Dirk Strider and you will never forget who you are again.

One time, long ago in a universe that never happened, you played a game with your best friends.

You go to your death and around you all the colours mix and swirl.

Grey is Red and Blue dances round. Green grows and Red flares and Teal and Cerulean always come in pairs. Yellow and Tyrian and Violet intertwined as one. Ultramarine always entwined with Olive while Brown swirls with indigo and Rust. Jade and Purple and EVERYTHING.

And in the end. In the last minutes. When Time finally halts. Everything fades to White.

* * *

Umm... yeah... this happened...

Basically after the scratch Dave regains his memories of his past life when he meets his former friends and his life... he also seems to have synaesthesia... The last paragraph is meant to include all of the last players, you can probably work out who's who.

Read and Review?


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